Business Insurance

Are you looking for liability insurance or professional indemnity insurance? It is not just for doctors, lawyers and brokers. Consultants in a number of fields, from yoga teachers to construction workers, to plumbers and general contractors can use errors and omissions insurance (called E&O insurance) in order to offset the possible cost of legal expenses and lawsuit fees that occur when a client sues them for malpractice, or some perceived negligence in their field. Even people who work in nonprofit organizations can use indemnity insurance. While no one wants to think that his or her favorite client will sue them, it happens. Many professionals carry business insurance to take the fear out of consulting with other companies or giving advice to private clientele.

Mostly, this type of insurance is meant to cover bodily injury or harm, negligence or misrepresentation. While no practitioner, whether they are fixing a toilet, teaching someone how to practice Downward Facing Dog, or advising them how to care for a terminal disease, expects to be sued for the and counsel they give someone, sometimes a person will feel that negligence or bodily harm was a direct result of something that a professional did or said. In some cases, even when the practitioner or professional gives advice a client does not follow it, and if documented, the case is thrown out of court or a judge or jury will find that there was no negligence on the part of the professional. Even still, the attorney’s fees to fight such cases can be exorbitant, and for small businesses, especially, indemnity insurance can take the sting out of any lawsuit that ever crops up.

For instance, in the medical profession alone, there are over 90,000 wrongful death cases ever year. Indemnity insurance helps offset legal fees for any medical doctor who faces such an adverse claim. Another common application is for anesthesia mistakes, this also being in the medical field. In the case of an attorney’s profession, there are thousands of professional negligence cases every year, and some lawyers even specialize in professional negligence cases against attorneys who have misrepresented or under-represented their clients. In other fields, there are a loss of work claims, damage to property claims, and further negligence claims. Making sure you have liability insurance keeps you safe if you are held ‘liable’ in a court of law.

While there are usually pre-actions to any negligence claim to try to prevent them from going to court, and settling amicably between the parties who have a complaint and the professional they hired, whether doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc., an indemnity insurance policy can make any situations that arise a temporary set back in doing business, and not a long-term hurdle that can even put some people out of business altogether. Business insurance may seem superfluous because it may seem unlikely that you will ever be subject to a negligence claim, but even the best professionals in their field have had to deal with an unhappy or actually wronged client.